![[TFU] Thegoon84](/styles/overclockers/avatars/6.png){kind=avatar}
Peaky Blinders yes.... The period drama stuff can only be done by the British..... Such as The Tudor's, amazing.
The rest.... Meh, not for me at all!
How TV has changed....
- Thread starter [TFU] Thegoon84
- Start date
Peaky Blinders yes.... The period drama stuff can only be done by the British..... Such as The Tudor's, amazing.
The rest.... Meh, not for me at all!
Soldato
[TFU] Thegoon84;30392320 said:
I'd pretty much agree.
The first three are 'on my list', but in no hurry. It's still a very small list compared to the 20 or 30 plus GREAT shows we could probably easily list, aired on US TV (or Netflix/Amazon)
Netlfix and HBO are the only real TV channels worth a damn. Maybe AMC.
I hate the way TV is now in some cases.
The way ratings have become a death sentence after the pilot.
I think it started with Lost, channels saw that cashcow and created a similar formula for every show since.
It drives me nuts that a show just gets good but because it's first few episodes were poor it's cancelled before the end of the 1st season, or because it doesnt rate well on the first episode it gets moved to a grave yard shift and loses even more fans. Another side effect has been that some channels push more reality rush or unrealistic stupid stuff for peopel to binge. Look at the Scifi channel and how it's turned to crap. MTV turned into RealityTV. History channel showing Ancient Aliens etc. It breeds rubbish like Storage Wars and Pawn Shop which are so fake.
I hate the way TV is now in some cases.
The way ratings have become a death sentence after the pilot.
I think it started with Lost, channels saw that cashcow and created a similar formula for every show since.
It drives me nuts that a show just gets good but because it's first few episodes were poor it's cancelled before the end of the 1st season, or because it doesnt rate well on the first episode it gets moved to a grave yard shift and loses even more fans. Another side effect has been that some channels push more reality rush or unrealistic stupid stuff for peopel to binge. Look at the Scifi channel and how it's turned to crap. MTV turned into RealityTV. History channel showing Ancient Aliens etc. It breeds rubbish like Storage Wars and Pawn Shop which are so fake.
Last edited:
river, line of duty, black mirror-ish, wolf hall, inside no 9. Though definitely Scandi rise and internet TV is shifting habits.
Yes I agree with this.... What makes it worse is when they rush out a second series just to answer a few questions.... Jericho I'm talking about ! Such a good show.
Like others have said really normal TV is mostly bull, apart from the odd documentaries and shows.
Definitely all about the series hype now
Most TV isn't about making good shows, it's about making something enough people will watch in order to sell adverts in the breaks and make money. That's why the likes of **** reality TV is all over the place - it's cheap to make, and so makes good profit margins.
I don't think the ratio of good/bad/original/whatever stuff on TV has changed, but the way we consume it has.
"On-demand" services enable us to get more of what we want, which enables the studios to produce more of what we want. The same goes the other way: the creation of trash is required to be ever more trashy to ensure audience figures, giving rise to abominations such as "Take Me Out," and that restaurant dating programme.
"On-demand" services enable us to get more of what we want, which enables the studios to produce more of what we want. The same goes the other way: the creation of trash is required to be ever more trashy to ensure audience figures, giving rise to abominations such as "Take Me Out," and that restaurant dating programme.
I think days are seriously numbered for tv in it's traditional sense, once you go netflix etc. it's excruciating watching normal telly with all the ad breaks. Cut the cord myself last month
I'd agree though there is more quality tv shows being pumped out now than at any other time. Just as well because the vast majority films being made seem to be complete pants
I'd agree though there is more quality tv shows being pumped out now than at any other time. Just as well because the vast majority films being made seem to be complete pants
See, I loved Breaking Bad. So much I've watched the entire series 3 times now but I think it is so overrated it's unreal.
Maybe overrated is a bit of a exaggeration and I haven't started the Sopranos yet (annoyingly I signed up to Sky Now thinking it would have the box set as they have HBO things but had no joy) so I'm not sure how it compares to that but for me Breaking Bad is a very distant 2nd to The Wire.
I have managed to watch the first two online but it cropped out half of the image so i might jut buy the box set.
Why hasn't it aged well? i thought the start was good (he loves his ducks doesn't he!). I need to see if it truely is better than The Wire.
Couldn't get into GoT, may give it another go but for now I'm reading the books.
Why hasn't it aged well? i thought the start was good (he loves his ducks doesn't he!). I need to see if it truely is better than The Wire.
Couldn't get into GoT, may give it another go but for now I'm reading the books.
Sopranos is basically a soap opera with a new jersey gangster backdrop and you have to sit through a lot of rubbish to find genuinely good episodes.
At the time I didn't mind and really liked it, maybe it's me that hasn't aged well and Soprano's is fine
It's not a patch on The Wire which is pretty timeless.
Soldato
Personally i find TV now days to be full of **** with the rare occasional gem. The vast majority of it is pure tripe though and the reason why i packed up watching tv 2 years ago and havent bought a license for 2 years. I prefer on demand and watching and paying for what i want rather than 99% of what i dont want.
I tried to register for HBO for GoT but even then the head of HBO is a dinosaur that wont let non US residents to register and pay for it... ah well their loss still going to watch it one way or another... yo ho ho m'harties
I tried to register for HBO for GoT but even then the head of HBO is a dinosaur that wont let non US residents to register and pay for it... ah well their loss still going to watch it one way or another... yo ho ho m'harties
Well TV has certainly improved since I was a kid; three channels and you had to get up to turn it over 
I do think the days of traditional TV are numbered. I keep meaning to cancel Sky because I watch Netflix and Amazon so much more. There is a huge amount of what I consider rubbish. Most of it just doesn't appeal to me.
But the few highs are genuine highs such as Breaking Bad and more recently Westworld which I thought was one of the best things on TV for years. But the Netflix and Amazon model allows me to search out those gemms (admittedly Westworld wasn't on either).
I do think the days of traditional TV are numbered. I keep meaning to cancel Sky because I watch Netflix and Amazon so much more. There is a huge amount of what I consider rubbish. Most of it just doesn't appeal to me.
But the few highs are genuine highs such as Breaking Bad and more recently Westworld which I thought was one of the best things on TV for years. But the Netflix and Amazon model allows me to search out those gemms (admittedly Westworld wasn't on either).
I don't think there is much more good stuff on now. There's certainly a lot of crap, much more with whole channels dedicated to crap. . But what is good can be very good. Unfortunately it seems to be mainly big budget stuff. But with Netflix etc you are starting to get more and more half way stuff.
I still miss old Sci fi and comedy (stargate, Red dwarf, father Ted) but walking dead GoT etc are awesome
And then you get random gems like black mirror.
I no longer pay for a TV licence now Netflix 4od etc stream anytime worth watching. Shame to miss out on planet earth but I don't watch enough BBC to justify the cost.
On flip side, some of the sky channels and freeview.. Wow. Does anyone watch that dross?
Also all this strictly, X factor stuff. It seems popular so fair enough, but that, soaps etc. Not for me.
Nice to have the choice and the eventual embracing of on demand
I still miss old Sci fi and comedy (stargate, Red dwarf, father Ted) but walking dead GoT etc are awesome
And then you get random gems like black mirror.
I no longer pay for a TV licence now Netflix 4od etc stream anytime worth watching. Shame to miss out on planet earth but I don't watch enough BBC to justify the cost.
On flip side, some of the sky channels and freeview.. Wow. Does anyone watch that dross?
Also all this strictly, X factor stuff. It seems popular so fair enough, but that, soaps etc. Not for me.
Nice to have the choice and the eventual embracing of on demand
Soldato
I thought they still hound you, even if your TV has no aerial connected?
There's loads of "rubbish" as people are keen to point out, but the main difference nowadays is freedom of choice. I grew up as a kid with 4 TV channels of which half had adverts and were mostly shut down overnight about from maybe ITV. There was no internet so basically you looked in Radio Times and picked from 4 channels. Even though as I got older there was rudimentary recording on VHS you'd still have to find stuff worth taping and then studiously write down / remember whereabouts on each tape the thing you wanted to watch was.
So essentially if there was rubbish on TV you could do nothing about it.
Nowadays having had digital switchover etc the majority of households have Freeview and indeed internet plus easy recording/cataloguing etc. So most people probably have access to 50+ channels plus various streaming services, free or subscription.
As I said there may still be a lot of rubbish but there is so much variety that most people can find something if they are interested in TV. And it helps to cater for those different tastes - I don't watch Celebrity Big Brother but if someone else wants to, that's their choice and it's not like it is hogging 25% of the available TV channels.
So I actually think the quality of productions is of much less relevance now, you can have 100 channels of absolute garbage and it doesn't matter, you just need to find one channel showing something you want. Even less of an issue with PVR, catchup TV etc.
edit: The annoying thing is, TV has finally reached the level I want it at, but I have very little time to watch it any more. Need to get made redundant!
So essentially if there was rubbish on TV you could do nothing about it.
Nowadays having had digital switchover etc the majority of households have Freeview and indeed internet plus easy recording/cataloguing etc. So most people probably have access to 50+ channels plus various streaming services, free or subscription.
As I said there may still be a lot of rubbish but there is so much variety that most people can find something if they are interested in TV. And it helps to cater for those different tastes - I don't watch Celebrity Big Brother but if someone else wants to, that's their choice and it's not like it is hogging 25% of the available TV channels.
So I actually think the quality of productions is of much less relevance now, you can have 100 channels of absolute garbage and it doesn't matter, you just need to find one channel showing something you want. Even less of an issue with PVR, catchup TV etc.
edit: The annoying thing is, TV has finally reached the level I want it at, but I have very little time to watch it any more. Need to get made redundant!
Last edited:
I think in the future we will look back on this period as a bit of a 'golden era' for TV. Over the years the line between film and TV has become blurred.
The camera technology used is mostly digital now, so the 90s video feel is long gone. Most box office hits these days are comic book adaptions or 3D animations with not much scope for character driven films, so TV is the perfect platform for that too. There are also plenty of actors who have moved from film to TV, or do both; its no longer viewed as a second rate career option.
Having said that it does feel like there is a bubble forming with the amount of programmes Netflix and Amazon are pumping out. There are dozens that I haven't seen let alone heard of. In the long term there's no guarantee the TV economy will exist as it does now, if say future generations enjoy doing different things. I'm thinking at some point virtual reality will kill off TV as we know it.
The camera technology used is mostly digital now, so the 90s video feel is long gone. Most box office hits these days are comic book adaptions or 3D animations with not much scope for character driven films, so TV is the perfect platform for that too. There are also plenty of actors who have moved from film to TV, or do both; its no longer viewed as a second rate career option.
Having said that it does feel like there is a bubble forming with the amount of programmes Netflix and Amazon are pumping out. There are dozens that I haven't seen let alone heard of. In the long term there's no guarantee the TV economy will exist as it does now, if say future generations enjoy doing different things. I'm thinking at some point virtual reality will kill off TV as we know it.
Some great comments ..... Seems others have the same feel for as the guy above put it "the golden age" of TV!